Sunday, July 8, 2012

J'adore mes amies

I am so, so grateful for my friends here. Although Paris is lovely and I cannot rave enough about my family, it would be fairly lonely all by myself. One can only visit so many museums.

Thursday night we went over to Mandi's for dinner: a lovely meal of shrimp, vegetables, bread and nutella and cheese (not together, don't worry) in an apartment so old we were afraid to touch anything. On the shelves were tiny, brown-paged books from who knows what century and the living room housed antiques like a mini chamber pot chair. It's been cool to chat and dine in different environments, observing the different ways to live out a "Parisian" lifestyle.

In preparation for Bastille Day

Dans le Marais

Friday night, after some seriously irritating confusion regarding dinner (the mobile phone company, Orange, decided to stop working tout à coup, so Mandi and Reid waited outside my apartment for ages because I never received their calls), we went out clubbing. It was marvelous. Paris est vraiment la ville de lumiere. After a night filled with sweat, catcalls, and upbeat indie-rock music, we took the first metro back home, sleepily returning to our humble abodes as the sun was rising and the city was just beginning to wake up.



After a much-needed shower, I went promptly to bed, waking up yesterday afternoon just in time to greet Reid and Mandi at my house. We had planned on going to Versailles, but alas, il pleuvait (it was raining). So after chatting for several hours, we went grocery shopping, made dinner, and planned on baking... But talked too much. We had forgotten to buy eggs and the clock read 9:45, by which point all of the stores had closed. So we decided to just talk for another hour instead, taking it easy after the night before.


Reid and I cruised around the Marais today, one of the nicest areas in Paris (see photos above). This morning we had breakfast at a nice little brasserie, sipping espresso and chatting in French as we munched on the most buttery, flaky croissants I have ever eaten. The weather has been pretty awful, so we've done a lot of sitting at tables lately. But, as they say in France, c'est pas grave (it's not a big deal). After sitting in a really nice Starbucks in the Marais, waiting on the rest of my group from my class to prepare a presentation, I took the subway home and made some blondies from the easiest recipe ever on my new favorite website: http://www.smittenkitchen.com (see below... yum). I then went for a run and accidentally ran five miles. Oops. Shortly after Sophie and Vincent returned and we had a wonderful greek salad dinner with produce they had bought at the equivalent of the farmer's market close-by.


In unrelated news, we bought tickets to Nice! So excited to see the South of France. I feel like it'll be a bit more my speed. Less city, more open air. And the people watching will of course be interesting. We leave in a couple weekends, which, hard as it is to believe, is my last weekend in France. Oh, how quickly the time goes...

A plus tarde,
-A

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